Well, yes and no. Okay, what I mean is yes, I would like to see the series reboot and obviously restore the marriage. No, I don't think it necessary needs to reboot and there are concerns that come with it.
Personally, I would be just fine undoing OMD by them remarrying. Include some lines about their marriage being stronger than time and space or some junk to really nail it home that we're not gonna just hit an undo button on it next time someone gets the itch to do so.
The big problem whenever you reboot is, what's in canon and what isn't. That was a major problem for longtime fans in the early days of both BND and the New 52. Somehow Batman had all his Robins and their storylines take place in like 5 years. We had no idea what MJ was even up to at first with BND, let alone what her years with Peter were like until OMIT unsatisfyingly said "Well they were still together, just not married." Which is like...why not just have them be divorced at that point, and not make the previous history that much more confusing? So when you reboot, you have to ask a bunch more questions to try and satisfy the long time readers. Sure, it may get you a surge of new readers at first. But as the New 52 proved with its swath of cancellations, those new readers aren't all sticking around and making you the regular money like the long time readers usually are.
So, personally, while a magic undo on OMD would be great, I'd really rather just see Spider-man keep moving forward, he and MJ reconcile properly and just get hitched again.
Then the easiest reboot it's just that after Civil War Peter and Mary Jane got a divorce and now after everything the live being separate they "fix" whatever problem is and get married them again. Making the deal with the Devil irrelevant and making Aunt May alive by other method. Fuck OMD, OMIT and whoever said divorce is not good.
Simple like that.
Okay, let's say we just totally erase everything from OMD until now. How do you explain the last 15 years? Just didn't happen? Peter never particiapted in any major events or any of the crossovers with Spider-man other books had are no longer in canon? What about characters introduced like Carlie and Silk? Does Miles know Peter, or would they have to meet all over again? If certain things DID still happen, what certain things, and why? If you hit the undo button, it's not just as clean and simple as you think.
I think the Superman Reborn method was a genius way to just cobble together all the messy history Clark and Lois had with the New 52 while not invalidating what happened between the loss of their marriage and its return.
Similarly, The Flash with Wally West did a great job of having characters "converge" with the thoughts and feelings of their alternate reality selves to bring Wally and his family back together.
This is Marvel. We have reality warping, time-altering craziness every single week in the pages of Doctor Strange, X-Men, and Fantastic Four. If you can explain the history of Cable, you can make fixing OMD work.
Well, I don't mean Chat in particular rather I mean I'd love to see this type of supportive mutual trust romantic relationship in Modern 616 Spidey for a (much needed) change. I'm sick of the third-wheel Pauls and Carlies of the comic world, the OOC whining and blaming Peter on the part of MJ (and others) for being Spider-Man, and the general on-again off-again misery merry-go-round.
Last edited by Celgress; 06-01-2023 at 08:28 PM.
"So you've come to the end now alive but dead inside."
It's already messy. If you think about "One More Day" and its changes, the whole timeline falls apart like a house of cards. Nobody has been consistent about what "counted" and what "doesn't". Quesada said the pregnancy didn't happen, but then multiple writers made references to it. Time was rewritten so the marriage was missed, and MJ was so upset she didn't go through with it, but then they supposed lived together and did everything they did as a married couple anyway? Mephisto just snapped some wedding photos out of existence? And as the events go closer to Civil War ordeal, it was never explained how they then just... didn't go through those events together and wound up separated with different lives? And that doesn't take into consider all the events that really hinged on the marriage and were driven as marital choices. They wanted their cake and to eat it too and it just never made sense, so most writers just ignored all that mess and asked us to not think about it too hard. Except they've now inferred things like Mayday being the key to stopping Mephisto in the future, Doctor Strange finding out Peter's soul has been "tampered" with, characters who died during the marriage who came back after OMD not remembering, Mayday and Annie crossing over into the Spider-verse and Peter not realizing the timelines were rewritten, etc.
It's such a mess. As Looper's site said, it's an albatross around every story they do. It's why even now folks are going "is Mephisto doing this still?". It's an answer they've avoided because they hoped we'd stop asking the questions. Just pretend it's truly a 'brand new day" and erase your thirty year history with the relationships and growth, but it "still all counts" but doesn't and...
... and it's not going to get ever get better until they address it head-on with a good story.
Last edited by Garlador; 06-01-2023 at 09:27 PM.
I would hate to see Marvel comics ever do a hard reset. I know the sliding timescale is wonky, and ages don't make sense, and some characters grow while others don't... it's clunky, but a continual story lasting for several decades is too damn cool to ever give up.
That said, I think like most people here I would like to undo some of the changes. (It's the wedding, of course it's the wedding, I was like a toddler when that story released and I'm sad as hell MJ and Pete haven't gotten back together yet.) I don't particularly care to set him back to being a bumbling college kid, and I thought Parker Industries was interesting in concept so I don't need a "back to basics" type story, but reestablishing Peter's character as more than an emotional punching bag would be nice.
Maybe it's because of MCU'S NWH, but I feel like Dr. Strange would be a clean vehicle to undo some of these plots. In recent times, he also had a marriage stripped from him by Mephisto, which I believe he successfully wrangled back. There's precedent there. It might be fun to have an event comic where issue #0 is him doing some sorcery shenanigans and he realizes that, very cleverly and carefully hidden, there's a mark on Peter's otherwise pure soul that denotes him as having made a deal with the devil, which Doc would of course immediately begin investigating because why would Spider-Man of all people have made a pact with evil?
Since One More Day happened the character has stagnated into a world of wacky, shocking status quos. What Doc Ock's mind now in Spidey's body? Now Spidey's the head of a global corporation? Oh wait thats gone. None of the stories after OMD really feel like they matter because the illusion of growth is gone.
I really did like some of the ideas they played with. Superior Spider-Man was the first time I ever collected comics, I thought the idea was super cool. But I agree with your point, a lot of it just doesn't stick. Doc Ock got reset to be the classic guy, all growth gone. Parker Industries shutters without much impact (the most I think you could say is Beyond kicks off because it's mentioned Parker Industries didn't copyright the Spider-Man identity, but... seems like beyond could've gotten the rights without it? Also I'm not sure a vigilante would give a shit what the law says.) There hasn't really been a modern villain that's shone either. The weird vampire guys from Spider-Verse stay pretty confined to Spider-Verse stuff, and they're the only kinda new villain that I can remember.